You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Coney Island’ category.
This is the work and play post . . . the real connection is that although we all have to work, an important secret is to enjoy what you do. Imagine this enthusiasm in a co-worker or yourself on Monday morning, whether you’re struggling to finish a group report or
like the Villiersdorp farmers and ALE and their associates moving Alwyn Vintcent on 80 functioning wheels–at least– around Table Mountain.
If you don’t enjoy it . .. or relish the challenge and execution,
you won’t even start the job.
This is the only way to get through obstacles that stop your progress . . . Revel in the task . . . like
the folks at NYS Marine Highway, now shipping corn–yes–corn–out of Ontario and into the Erie Canal. How long has it been that agricultural commodities have been shipped on the Erie Canal . . . how long have people talked about shipping same on that waterway that revolutionized NYC . . . or international shipping entering the Erie Canal, but Margot (over a half century young) and its crew
is actually-as we speak–
doing it! Bravo to the folks at NYS Marine Highway. Click here for lots more fotos of Margot.
Sun dancing is great, but the spirit that drives the dancers also animates folks
who dance with ships and lines and
get one task done safely and then move to the next and the next.
So whatever you do, whatever I do . . .
I know that if I can do it in a way that gets me satifaction and pleasure,
the better.
South African fotos come compliments of Colin Syndercombe; the Oswego/Erie Canal fotos, . . . Allan and Sally of Sally W, and all the others by Will Van Dorp.
Related: Here’s another ALE job.
Unrelated: The longest marathon swim starts tomorrow morning over 100 miles up the Hudson.
The other side of the boro . . . the strand on Coney Island, sees a visitation of finnyfolk, who briefly leave the water for this sun festival. Enjoy this field guide to western North Atlantic merpeople. These came in a replica of Nefertiti’s royal barge.
These seemed influenced by both 1960s popular music and bowsprite’s logo, and
these . . . by abandoned rowboats . . . .
Bubbles emanate . . . maybe from lungs not yet fully functioning.
The appearance of merpopulations triggers camerafolk, some of whom work alone with archaic gear, and
others that swarm, especially as mermaids apply their version of . . . cosmetics?
Lest anyone appear a threat, they bring in formidable security.
But otherwise, they just love to dance the
sun dance to their
own musicians who work with strings and wind and
percussion.
Some have ideas about politics and
activism; others
gloom-and-doom-ify.
Some mermaids, residing underwater as do hulls of boats, like boats need a haircut and a shave.
Some experience low-oxygen shock in the Coney summer air, as
they dance and
dance and take a break only for
recording it all for posterity.
And posterity surely should remember the color
and line.
Happy sun dance day.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
First . . . around the boro, the light is beauteous enough to suspend a sense of time and obligation and stress and disappointment. This side of the boro, though on duty, works the milder solstice.
Lynx (1967, ex-Catherine Foss, Kainani) probably working with a dredging project, I’ve never seen here before.
Discovery Coast glows.
Nicole Leigh waits orders, as crew might ponder
a different season, as seen here.
In this heat and light, Kimberly looks positively artdeco: her aqua would blend in on South Beach and way beyond.
Brandywine wrestles the season as she dances her partner DoubleSkin 141.
Quenames broods as she gazes into the stream.
Miriam Moran cruises past Sailors’ Snug Harbor, as purposefully as always.
Jane A. Bouchard races deep into right field, showing what waters can be divided by more than 6000 hp on the wheels, while her older sister
Barbara E. Bouchard dozes briefly in the shadows before moving upriver, where
the venerable Patty Nolan dons her midsummer’s bikini, freshens up her dancing paint . . . the mayor’s drum is soon to call to disorder the 2012 parade . . . the sixth boro’s shoreline version of Mardi Gras.
OK . . . one final glance for now at Lynx off to the dredge site.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who is solely responsible for any erroneous interpretations of event, signs, and artless ceiling doodles.
Happy summer!!
Unrelated: If you happen to “see things” when you pass the KVK salt pile on Saturday night, you’re not hallucinating. Lumen will happen.
For an auspicious virtual gallivant as they sally forth through the Rideau Canal from Lake Ontario to Ottawa and beyond, follow Sally W . . .
With apologies to Johna, here are the pastries, a merman,
a merbike, but no meryak!! Guess that one will challenge us til next year.
Horns aplenty (more than in Pamplona Seattle) feted the solstice, as did
hooks on lures,
harlequins of
many genres,
spiral horned,
orchestrated horns,
harlequins with parasols,
and here . . . beyond the cowboy in blue toga, library maids and masters with a classic edition of Jules Verne . . . .
By the next day, revelry had migrated to Red Hook, where theatrical scenes of fund-raising on behalf of PortSide NewYork took place, involving officers of
someone’s flotilla bearing keys to the city. By the way, if you can make it to the Community Board 1 meeting TONIGHT by 6 pm, I’ll see you there. Important!
And someone commented . . asking what this mermaidographer looked like, click here and go to #9; thanks for these to Claudia Hehr.
Cheers. Summer is here . . . and I may tomorrow be agallivantin . . .
Meanwhile, if anyone got good pics of the librarian mermaid/mermen contingent . . . please share?
aka . . pastries pasties and paint, starting with the self-described ”naked cowgirl.”
Why
gild
the
lily?
I’ll
just
put up
fotos
but
further
remain
mute.
See you at south Brooklyn aka Isle of Coney next year.
Happy summertime.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Coney Island–the reef–has existed within the sixth boro since time immemorial, this gathering has occurred since 1983, and tugster has blogged it since 2007, drawn by the natural beauty of creatures–like this one– with
their altruistic sensibilities, their
bio-diversity, their
breathing behavior in dry–if muggy- air, and … more.
But I couldn’t help noticing yesterday that . . . as the mermaids school on this reef, so does another species . . . camera-bearers. Even chief-liaison Dick Zigun has cameras turned on him.
And mermaids themselves sport cameras, maybe as mimicry.
But yesterday the camera-bearers were everywhere!
They schooled–dare I say swarmed–each time a seamaid emerged out of the reef.
Not that the mercreatures seemed to perceive threat; in fact,
it looked like mutual enjoyment
a case of fun, fanfare,
flourish, and frippery.
And camera-bearers feasted at every turn.
And how do you suppose I got these fotos of
such lovely creatures, who
traveled by a range of
conveyance?
More on that tomorrow . . . and the pasties and paint verson of the story.
OK, all fotos here by Will Van Dorp.
Totally related: in the third foto from end above . . . one mermaid sported a tugboat atop her hear but my shot was blurry. Also, I missed a shot of the “librarian mermaids,” which, if anyone got, I’d love a link or a copy.
#1 was here.
It’s June. Might you be suffering from hypoclupea . . . deficiency of herring? Read what the celebrated neurologist Oliver Sacks writes about treatment here, as published in the New Yorker two years ago. Hypoclupea can leave you blase, bleached, apathetic . . .
dried out . . . as Miss Callie herself is feeling these days. To see Miss Callie in her element among the fishes, click here.
Even on Coney Island, the painting near the boardwalk looks off because this siren has taken to eating . . . @#@! dogs, and they’re not even hot.
Go fishing . . . whether you use bunker for bait and catch your own, or just
exchange cash or credit at the nearest purveyor of “new catch holland herring,” and you’ll find your zest for life just
returns! You might even end up seeing mermaids without having to go to the latest Depp/Disney show.
All fotos by will Van Dorp, who has lots of unrelated odds and ends and who just might not post tomorrow.
Translated info on the fleet at a “loggers” festival in Vlaardingen on the Rhine this weekend. ”Logger” in Dutch is “lugger” in English.
From Uglyships’ Bart, here’s a video on an uneventful loading of the loading of 15! tugs onto SSHLV Fjell in Singapore bound for Maracaibo via Cape Town. Here’s a Reuters article on same.
And finally, last but not least, you’ll see a new image of “tugster” on the upper left side of this blog; click on the image and you’ll see part of an article that appeared in Jack Tar Issue #5. Watercolor is by Herb Ascherman of Cold is the Sea blog. Another great example of his work is cover on Jack Tar #5.
Finally, if you find yourself in Manhattan Saturday, look to the water: I know of at least one swim around the island race going on. New York has enthusiastic swimmers!
Happy solstice!
The solstice happens in a week. Is your household ready, mobilized. Can you safely take it out onto the highways and wetways?
Thoughts of anything but summer . . . with its adventures and gallivants . .. are elusive, for me. Dana Spiotta writes of that in tomorrow’s NYTimes magazine, recounting a voyage on the Erie Canal by rowboat with Tide and Current Taxi‘s very own Marie Lorenz. You could go fishing: both Marlin and Minnow are currently in the sixth boro.
You could just go sit by the water and see all there’s to see. I saw a classic loon yesterday–who dove before I could snap evidence. This Corsair passed more slowly, less skittishly.
A week from now you could swim around Manhattan . . . or volunteer to keep swimmers safe by emailing cweber@nyc.org
You could swallow new herring and gin. Here’s more info.
In a week you could go to the Clearwater Festival.
This foto from last year comes from Yen. I know where, like these monks, I’m going . . . .
Next Saturday . . . the sea will again boil with hot blood and creatures rarely seen will emerge and parade. It’s the 29th
annual Mermaid Parade and Ball!!!
Thanks, Yen, for that foto.
This is a post for Bonnie, in response to hers in which she reveals she’s crazy about buoys, very crazy . . . by her own admission a week ago. Further, Bonnie’s post was in response to Tillerman.
I feel compelled to say I’m equally crazy about gulls, all kinds of gulls including eeeee
gulls . . . er, eagles.
But I don’t like dogs or
snakes.
The second foto comes thanks to Bob McLaren via Allen Baker. Taken in the early 1960s, the fotos shows the house of Dalzelleagle, now McAllister Brothers as seen here and here. Previously, Allen has supplied this foto and others. Please get in touch if you have ideas on how I can locate and photograph any remaining Dalzell trademark eagles. Other vessels with ornamental eagles are Huntington and Pacific. (Use “find” to locate the ornamental eagle reference within those articles. I’m curious about this tradition. )
The third foto shows McKinley Sea (1981, ex-Annabelle V. Roehrig and El Oso Grande II). And the boa, I took the foto on Coney Island after the mermaid parade in 2007.
Back to that foto of the other day, the third one down here that maybe baffled you . . . made you wonder if it got dropped in by error? Well, it was taken at Coney Island last summer, the place I usually depict as here or in fotos like the one below,
or
here.
Coney Island is the location where the slightly sordid transaction involving tugster took place last summer. Well, money changed hands although my heart was conflicted,
and folks in the sidelines encouraged me onward, not that I wanted to proceed, of course. I didn’t want to see where this would lead.
It’s just a kid . . . I thought . . . . But this is Coney Island, where the inappropriate is appropriate, a fantasy land where rules are attenuated, or even temporarily suspended, where you’re supposed to see things differently if only for a few hours.
“Go for it! You can’t stop now . . .” and even more explicit taunts came from both in front of me and behind me. I was slipping on a slippery slope, thinking I had resolve
but losing control over it . . . ”Nah, I can’t do this,” came the inner voice.
But the jeers rose from the pit and sneers tumbled from behind, and
there was but one way out. Forward. I had to see this through.
The invisible tiger was stalking me,
I could smell the feline and hear it breathe,
I proceeded. To my surprise, when my magazine was empty, I had left beauty
marks . . . scumbling on the shield canvas. . . . yes, canvas held by my assistant. Eureka!
You must be thinking . . . what on earth is this all about? Simple: today I turn 59, and Coney Island . . . and these 6-month-old fotos from Coney Island . . . is my way to celebrate it. I’m surging forward into a place I’ve never been, and hoping to create order and grace from angst and doubt. And “Coney Island” after all is the anglicized version of “konijn eilandt,” konijn being rabbit, and since–in honor of the year of the rabbit– I could find NO record of a vessel passing through the harbor here EVER with a name like rabbit or hare or bunny . . . . this is the best I can do.
And that summer’s ritual of trespassing lines of convention . . . that one cannot be repeated. I imagined I talked with the freak the other day as he was taking my order at the coffee shop.
Somehow related: the Manhattan Borough historian has declared Feb 9 to be “alligators-in-the-sewers” day. I wonder if we can get the sixth boro historian to make such proclamations . . .
Clearly related: SP-346 aka USS Edgar F. Coney . . . was a NJ-built WW1-era tugboat.
All but the first three fotos by Faith.
Recent Comments